<p>It amazes me looking at Mom’s old photos from the 30s, 40s, 50s. Virtually NO ONE is fat. In general the young ladies are quite thin, not too thin, but just right. I think it is completely alarming what has happened in this country.<br>
What do you think?</p>
<p>Further:
Antibiotics. They’re fed to animals to fatten them.
The price of food is significantly lower.</p>
<p>Cheap processed food. 40 years of really bad nutrition advice/policy. </p>
<p>In the 30s and 40s, people ate real food and knew that sugars and grains were fattening.</p>
<p>Soda. Growing up we didn’t have it, mostly because it was relatively expensive. Now, it’s cheap and so are most other sugar-packed foods. People were also a lot more active and had fewer labor-saving conveniences. No television (as well as other electronics) meant more active family recreation. Kids played outside, walked to school and often worked after school. </p>
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<p>In the 1930s, people were poor due to the depression and could not afford much food. In the 1940s, food was rationed due to wartime needs. Daily activity (including but not limited to work, if one had a job) then meant much more exercise than it requires now.</p>
<p>No cable?</p>
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<p>Indeed. Starvation and various diseases due to nutritional deficiencies were serious issues in some regions of the US in the 30’s due to the depression and other issues. </p>
<p>Incidentally, one key reason for the Federally funded free school breakfast & lunch programs was because a post-WWII study found most of the 25% of draftees rejected as physically unfit for wartime service were found as such due to effects of childhood malnutrition. </p>
<p>The worst hard time.
<a href=“Timothy Egan author interview”>Timothy Egan author interview;
<p>On the other hand, I have pictures from the same period of people who were living on two bowls of oatmeal a day due to poverty and working in highly physical jobs. They’re fat–including the young women. YMMV. </p>
<p>The advent of the microwave. Meals didn’t need to be a from scratch, sit down affair any longer. The advent of snacking, The entitlement to sipping on something sweet all day long. The advent of pasta as part of every day American life. As a 50’s kid, we never had mac and cheese, and spaghetti was made by an Italian friend once a year. Our cooking is so much more interesting these days, perhaps to our, and certainly to my detriment. Sugar was thought to be bad, and desserts were a rare treat. Once a week, I’d have a tiny scoop of ice cream from the corner store after school. </p>
<p>The antibiotic connection is fascinating. Antibiotics are given to animals to help them gain weight, and we eat the antibiotic tainted meat. Which decreases the effectiveness of antibiotics given to us. However that’s another conversation. </p>
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If people were living on two bowls of oatmeal, that is about 150-200 calories/bowl (w/milk). So 400 calories a day? How could people be very active AND fat with that kind of caloric intake? </p>
<p>The book Fat Chance covers a lot of the science. The switch from sugar to corn syrup in soda production was a major point.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/dp/159463100X”>http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/dp/159463100X</a></p>
<p>They couldn’t, but how do we know what exactly anyone ate decades ago? Maybe, they were vat-sized bowls. lol. Portion sizes is a lot of this. What we consider a standard serving these days is enormous.</p>
<p>A good book on the subject of the food industry and processed foods: <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked-ebook/dp/B00985E3UG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398178934&sr=8-1&keywords=salt+sugar+fat”>http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked-ebook/dp/B00985E3UG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398178934&sr=8-1&keywords=salt+sugar+fat</a></p>
<p>Not only antibiotics in our food but hormones in the water supply influences weight gain.
<a href=“http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/20/hormone-disrupting-chemicals-linked-to-fracking-found-in-colorado-river/”>http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/20/hormone-disrupting-chemicals-linked-to-fracking-found-in-colorado-river/</a></p>
<p><a href=“EWG’s guide to endocrine disruptors | Environmental Working Group”>http://www.ewg.org/research/dirty-dozen-list-endocrine-disruptors</a></p>
<p>When I was a kid (in the 60s), my mom gave us fruit for dessert most nights - usually canned fruit. Sweets were rare treats. Living on a farm, our meals were hearty and probably high in sodium and fat, but we were all active. We walked to school, or the bus stop, played sports everyday, roamed the fields and forests in our free time. In my opinion, most people are overweight due to a combination of convenience foods and lack of activity. </p>
<p>YMMV. I’m very into family genealogy and I’ve found quite a few pictures of my eastern European relatives from the 1800s. The mothers were never, ever skinny. They weren’t obese but they were definitely “overweight” (They were also well-off as they had personal portraits). </p>
<p>Of course obesity is increasing at an alarming rate, but it certainly existed. </p>
<p>You know how many adults are into wearing the FitBits and similar type devices these days? (which I think are a good idea…) Hook one of those up to a classroom of 5th graders and see what kind of activity they have. You might be surprised at how little movement time kids are participating in. </p>
<p>I have a collection of recipes from my great-grandmother, dating back to the mid-1840s to early 1920s, assembled over time. Sugar. eggs, butter, cream, and bacon fat are prevalent. (One of my favorite recipes is for Bacon Sour Cream Biscuits.) Of course, she also cooked and kept home for 24 people on the family farm (the family (3 generations), 6 farm laborers, 3 household “maids”). I have a photograph of her in her 60s. She is generously sized (BMI in the high 20s, perhaps), but looks strong enough to dig ditches.</p>
<p>Obviously life in America 70 years ago was different. My parents’ generation was also raised on lard as a major ingredient in meals, but plenty of fresh vegetables too because it was a rural life. Rural life then meant physical WORK. Dishes and laundry done by hand. Toting water to and fro by hand, harvesting crops by hand, etc. I like the point about cane sugar desserts being a rare treat, even in my memory. My childhood desserts were usually fruit based.</p>